Hello! This is my guide to Talon.

The first thing to know is that he is not tanky dps, and he is not an AD carry. He is a true assassin, specializing in bursting the opponent down and getting out of there.

Given that, he should not be played like an AD carry. Most builds I see grab attack speed, this is probably the most useless stat in the normal AD build for Talon. As he is massively squishy and has no sustain, you do not want to go toe to toe with anyone. You want to jump in, burst them down and get out.

SO if you are looking for a Tri Force irelia type build, then look somewhere else, because this guide is purely about what Talon excels at, which is massive burst damage.

Pros:
High burst
Incredible 1v1 ability
Good escapes
Good farm mid to late game
High skill cap resulting in high results
Can shut down an enemy carry and get out faster than Poppy
Underestimated CC

Cons:
Squishy as hell
No hard CC
No lane sustainability

I go with Greater Mark of Desolation and Greater Quintessence of Desolation because I feel it helps mitigate anyone who grabs a Doran's shield early, allowing you to pick up kills early game, and not have any significant damage reduction. I get Greater Seal of Attack Speed mainly because his base attack speed is so slow, and I like have just a little bit more for last hitting early. Greater Glyph of Cooldown Reduction is the most important part of his rune page.

90% of Talons damage come from his kit. But abilities have cooldowns, so given he is so ability reliant, how do you easily up his damage? CDR. By endgame his q is on a 2 second cooldown, his ult is about 25 seconds, or less. This allows you to continuously provide huge burst damage for your team, and even some sustained damage, but based off your q and w, not your auto attacks.

Masteries are standard AD damage masteries. However you could go into Defense instead of Utility for a little bit added survival. I went into Utility mainly for the increased experience. The faster Talon levels up, the more damage his abilities do.

I always recommend getting 21 in offense, but the other 9 are purely a personal preference as to how you play.

I really like this item, it gives CDR, attack damage, a little bit off attack speed to make it less terrible, and a nice active that will assist you in chasing down kills.

Some might say you really need Merc's treads since CC shuts you down, but I feel the more burst you have the less it matters, and these CDR boots do just that.

I'm not totally sold on Bloodthirster given that auto attacking isnt too common, making the lifesteal unecessary. However it is useful for the damage buff, and for pushing minions down lanes after losing half health.

I didn't choose Bloodthirster I would probably go with a Last Whisper or Black Cleaver. For the increased armor pen.

Once you get this item it's game over, aside from massive damage, with the crit on here, your Q will be critting over 1200 on squishies, effectively letting you 2 shot them.


Here's where I see a lot of bad advice out there. It's typical for players nowadays to just insta grab Trinity Force on any not straight AD carry. This item is massively useless for Talon. As is Sheen. Tri force gives you these positives, a little bit of damage and health, but the mana is unecessary, the attack speed is a waste, and the sheen proc is not as good as it may seem.

Why spend 4k gold on an item, when a frozen mallet will give you a nice health buff, some damage, and a slow that increases your attacks against targets by 10%. The other stats on Tri Force are just a waste.

Now my build in general is about CDR and damage burst, with it you play Talon as intended, you blow someone up and get out for a few seconds, then jump right back in.

These items are almost the only other items I see as even viable. If you are having trouble catching up to people and they keep escaping, grab a Phantom Dancer. This should replace Youmuu's in your build, but replacing the Bloodthirster is acceptable too.

If the team has heavy CC, grab Mercury's Treads of the CDR boots.

I max out rake first simple because it is a ranged ability that has great harass and allows you to effectively farm minions, it is your best ability in lane. Q aftewards of course due to its damage, and last E, although I take a point in it early for some harass and early kills. It should be noted that the silence on Cutthroat is always only 1 second, so don't expect it to get any better as you level it up.

In a fight my general combo is this, I my enemy, then immediately Cutthroat and . I then ult using , run quickly to the opposite side of my target or targets and break it with another Q or W, whichever is up. This almost guarantees a low health target you can easily finish off.

Simple put it is ---> Cutthroat----> ---> --->Cutthroat

I take because with my lack of run speed I need the escape, and to catch up to my enemies sometimes. I take Because with the bleed from your Q coupled with Ignite, you can take someone down from 2-3 bars to dead, wonderful for those early game kills against the FOTM healer lanes.

However there definitely are options, is decent due to the synergy with your passive 10% damage bonus, and is useful as well for an escape or as an offensive tool.

Farming is fairly simple with Talon, once you get your to about 4, it will almost one shot the caster minions. I generally move past the melee minions and use it, then hit each caster minion once for the last hit, before turning to the melee minions, who should be low enough to be killed by it.

One thing to note is that Talon farms the Jungle very quickly. This is not to say he is a good jungler, I have not tried that. But he does really well with the CDR from blue buff, and the slow from red buff.

Here I will be posting real game scores of myself and other using this build, as they happen. So if you have a good game with this build feel free to send me a picture or let me know how it goes!

To summarize, Talon specializes in pure burst damage, and nothing else. He has the ability to take down an entire team, in my first normal game I landed 2 Quadras and a triple kill, nearly getting a Penta-kill on each.

The way to play Talon is an aggressive killer, often times I will dive in knowing I will die to pick up a double or triple kill, the most important thing in winning with Talon, is to learn his moves, if you miss the second wave of blades on your ult, you're not gonna kill the enemy. He requires precision and complete control.

Feedback is always appreciated! It is still early on in the life of Talon and I may change things now and then as I see necessary, but feedback is definitely helpful, constructive feedback moreso than destructive feedback.

With this build you will dominate mid to late game like you wouldn't believe. Enjoy!